Timing and a River

Today I took time to figure out my timing light. When I first got it a couple days ago I got it all hooked up right (or so I thought), turned on the engine, and pulled the trigger to turn on the light and it would force the engine to stall. I tried it several times to no avail.

Thanks to Ludwig and Gertie's Adventures I was able to figure out my problem. On the blog it was pointed out my problem. I had the red clip hooked to the wrong side of the coil. A simple problem like that. In the picture to the left I show which side to connect it too. For a ground I found that a bolt under the alternator worked well. So now that I have the timing light figured out I will have to pick up a distributor sometime hopefully my car will then run better.

On a side note, yesterday I took the bug over to the lake. No I didn't drive it into the lake, I know that bugs are supposed to float (watch this video), but I didn't dare try that with my rusty beetle. I had a teacher last semester that did try that once.

It was in the spring and it had been a very wet spring. My teacher was driving his wife's bug when he came to a river crossing. It was very deep because of all the rain. A bunch of guys in big beefy 4x4's were parked off to the side of the road looking into the river to see if it was safe enough to cross.My teacher didn't even give it a second thought before plowing over the river. He drifted across the river and went on his way. All the other guys didn't want to be outdone by a bug so they hopped in their trucks and took off across the river.

The story got me thinking, has anyone else had a similar experience, have you guys floated your beetle at all? Please comment, I would love to hear your stories and thoughts.